First Steps
by Cucumber
Summary: A man has escaped from Larkhill. Who is he? He's wondering the same thing.


There was an explosion.

The man's clothes were torn from him, his skin burned, his ears rang from the noise. He looked at the hole in the wall of the room and didn't quite know what to make of it. Then he saw a man in uniform running past and he remembered.

The man took his first, tentative step outside of the cell that was his home. People were running everywhere, not paying him any attention. He wanted to yell, I'm free! but he found that he couldn't formulate a single word. Instead, he let out a primal scream. Then he began running too. The man didn't know where he ought to run to, he only knew he had to get away from the fires, the chaos, the smell of death.

It was nighttime. It was dark. The only light came from the half-moon; there were no other buildings around for miles. The man kept running.

Running.

Running until he couldn't breathe. Then he collapsed in a field of some kind, with rows of plants that were taller than him. He had never once looked back to see if anyone was following him but he was certain no one was. Even if they were, he was too tired to care.

Tired. And hungry. And in terrible pain.

His whole body hurt from the burns and the soles of his feet were torn up.

But he was free and that was all that mattered.

The man slept.

He woke up a time later. It was hard to know what time it was because the sky was so overcast. He didn't move a muscle because moving meant pain. So the man considered his condition.

He knew he was a man and not an animal. Yes, that was the one thing he knew for sure because he'd heard people referring to him as "the man in Room Five."

"I am a human being," he said aloud, and was thankful that he was able to speak again. He detected an English accent in his voice and decided he was an Englishman. But he could not remember how old he was, where he was from, or what his name was.

He couldn't remember why he had been in that . . . _place_, or for how long.

He tried to search his memory for any indication of who he might have been but after a few futile minutes, he decided it was for the best. He was better off not knowing. After all, if he'd been a bad person of some sort, then he would have to be ashamed of himself, and if he'd been a good person, then it was all the more reason to mourn the loss of the life he'd had. No, whoever he had been _before_ was dead and gone.

It began to rain. The man opened his mouth to catch some of it. He was so desperately thirsty.

He swallowed, then said, "This is my baptism." It made him wonder if he'd been a Christian _before_, but he quickly suppressed the thought.

"I ought to name myself."

Names ran through his head: George, William, Benjamin, Oliver, Thomas . . .

The man rather liked the name Thomas but it sounded too flat, too ordinary. Maybe it had been my name _before_, he thought involuntarily before he could suppress it.

The idea of it made his eyes well up. The tears ran down his cheeks and mixed with the rain and he felt like the world was crying with him. He was filling with loathing and self-pity. The man thought he might kill himself presently. After all, what reason did he have to live?

The man slept. He dreamed of that _place_. He could see the various guards' and doctors' and administrators' faces with such startling clarity. He could see the door to his cell. It wasn't marked with the Arabic numeral 5, but with the Roman numeral V.

In red.

The color of blood and death and . . . revenge.

When the man woke it was no longer raining and his eyes were shining. He had a purpose and a name and a reason to live.

But first he had to get away from England. To heal. Regain his strength. Formulate a plan.

He'd go to America, the land of reinvention.

The man looked at his ruined hands. They may not be able to track me by my fingerprints anymore, he thought ruefully, but if any of my DNA survived the explosion in that _place_, they'll still be able to get me some day. In America he'd be far away from the Finger's reach.

The man shuddered at the remembrance of the Finger and the entire rotten political system.

I'm not running away, he told himself. It's not cowardice. I will come back to England some day. Not as this ruined wretch of a man, but as someone completely different.

I'll be . . .

V.


End file.
